"
"Are you sure it was only two spoonfuls, Charlie?"
"I am sure," responded Charlie, solemnly.
As good-luck would have it, while rummaging in the store-room a day or two
after that coffee talk, I came upon a little old oval wooden box, the lid
of which I detached with some difficulty, and as the scent of the roses
hung round it still, I had no difficulty in identifying my treasure-trove
with the wooden box that had played such a distinguished part in the good
old times when cooks "knew better than not to have good coffee, I can tell
you."
Hoping that some relic of my dead predecessor might prove more
awe-inspiring to contumacious Milly than my own despised monitions, I
exhumed the wooden box, had it thoroughly cleansed, filled with roasted
coffee and placed upon my mantelpiece, giving Milly orders to come to _me_
hereafter, every morning, for the coffee.
Charlie gave me a grateful little kiss when he saw the old box in the old
place, either as a reward for my amiable endeavor to do things as mother
did, or because he took the old wooden box for an outward and visible sign
of the inward and spiritual grace that was to move Milly to make good
coffee.
But somehow or other, in spite of the unsightly old wooden box on my
mantelshelf, the coffee didn't improve in the least.
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